


heal the wounds or crack the shell

by Hikaru Yuy (SailorVFan10)



Series: Operation: Parenting [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Multi, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorVFan10/pseuds/Hikaru%20Yuy
Summary: Usually Heero's nightmares are just a moment from Heero's life, recreated for the purposes of him reliving it. Unfortunately, sometimes his brain decides it's a good idea to toss several terrible moments from his life into a bowl, stir it around, and then dump the resulting soup into his dreams to make for an especially sleepless night. On this particular night, as he avoids waking his sleeping wife, he finds comfort in his Partner in All Things, Duo, who can't sleep either due to thinking too many thoughts. They talk of bad dreams, parenting fears, and what the future may or may not hold for them and their children.





	heal the wounds or crack the shell

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a lyric from the song "Propane Nightmares" by Pendulum.
> 
> I got the idea for this whilst writing the ending of "Let's Get Down to Business to Defeat the Fug" and it was originally the ending to said fic. However, I felt it worked better as a standalone, so I cut it from that and put it in its own story, where I feel it works so much better.

_AC 193_

_Time unknown_

_Location unknown  
_

There was no door. Or windows, for that matter.

Heero came to in a room that vaguely resembled a bathroom. There was something toilet-like in a corner, though it was covered in some kind of grime, and an equally grimy stall shower. He hadn't seen anything this bad since--

Heero sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it. His chest hurt, his lungs burned. Outside he could hear yelling and the spray of bullets. The air reeked of death and old blood and something else Heero couldn't name and didn't want to know. The yelling sounded Russian but Heero couldn't understand a word, despite his fluency in the language.

"Find him!" _That_ Heero understood. His ribs ached from his heart pounding against them. He looked down and noted his legs were bare, and there was a giant gash on his left calf that, in this climate, would probably become infected. A gash from crawling through a chain link fence, he remembered. It throbbed. His left shoulder hurt as well, and upon testing his movement range with it, realised it was dislocated.

_I'm in danger._ He got to his knees and squinted in the low light. He had no idea how he ended up in this place, but he knew he had to get out, and he had to get out _now_ if he wanted to live.

"We're not going to hurt you, Beta," came a voice that was too sweet to be convincing. "Just come on out. Be a good boy. We're not angry."

"Much," came another voice, followed by a chuckle.

_Beta?_ Heero's brow furrowed in confusion. _My name isn't Beta, it's--_

Light flooded the room and blinded him completely.

"Found him."

Heero yelled when hands grabbed his ankles and he tried to kick, tried to claw his way to anywhere that wasn't this person's grip, but his fingertips found no purchase on the broken tile that made up the floor, and the man lifted him off the floor with ease.

"Dekim was so worried," the man said with the fakest grin Heero had ever seen. "Worried his weapon just up and walked away."

_I'm not a weapon,_ he thought. _I'm a human being._

Heero felt himself fall and his body hit dirt and grass. It was nighttime. His fingers gripped what felt like a remote detonator. Picking himself up off the ground, everything before him was set ablaze as mobile suits lay in pieces all over what used to be an OZ base. Not all that far from him lay a single arm with no owner in sight. His eyes rejected that image, and his body followed suit as bile rose in his throat.

_You are a weapon, you were made to do nothing but kill. Seeing death and destruction shouldn't even phase you. You're a failure!_

"No..." Heero let the tremors wrack through his body. "I'm not... I'm not..." He collapsed, exhaling hard before everything disintegrated before him.

* * *

_AC 199_

_03:13_

_Brussels, Belgium_

Heero awoke covered in sweat. The thin bed sheet clung to him and he ripped it off, feeling too hot and too restricted by it. To his left, Relena remained in a deep sleep, her face buried in her pillow, her mind still in the land of dreams where it belonged at this time of night. He wasn't going to wake her just because of some stupid nightmare. He slipped out of bed and went down to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. The clock on the stove said it was past three in the morning, and Heero knew he wasn't going back to sleep any time soon.

"Hey."

Heero nearly jumped out of his skin as the Keurig dispensed piping hot coffee into his favourite mug.

"Duo, don't sneak up on me like that."

Duo, who was innocently drinking a bottle of beer, gave him a look as he removed his long legs from the table top.

"I've been here all night, 'Ro. Surprised you didn't notice I was here when you came in. It ain't like I'm hard to notice."

Heero skipped the almond milk he usually put in and put it only half a Sweet 'n' Low instead of his usual full packet. He needed something extra strong and little more bitter than usual tonight.

"I'm just a little distracted tonight. Sorry." He took a seat across from Duo.

"You wanna talk about it?" Duo asked. Heero shook his head. "Does Relena know? About the nightmares?"

"She knows I get up a lot during the night," Heero said, before taking a sip of coffee. "I tell her it's just me checking in on Millie. She doesn't question it."

Duo leaned back in his chair. "She don't say nothing about it?"

Heero shrugged. "She thinks I worry about Millie too much, but thinks it's cute that I take being a father so seriously."

Duo pulled his chair up next to Heero. "Need a shoulder? I got two that I know you like leaning on, even if you say otherwise."

Heero rolled his eyes, but rested his head on Duo's shoulder anyway.

"I haven't been sleeping well either," Duo confessed. "Too many thoughts about the past resurfacing. It happens whenever things seem to be going good, you know? I've got a kid and a wife who both love me, so it's time to remember a time when no one wanted me at all." He ran a hand through Heero's hair as he spoke.

"The Church, you mean."

"No, before that. Sister definitely wanted to keep me. Father too. Other kids didn't want me around, and prospective parents...well..."

Heero kissed Duo's jaw. "I want you."

Duo gave him a lazy smile before kissing him on the mouth, and Heero tasted coffee and beer with a hint of the toothpaste Duo had used a few hours before.

"I know you do." He twirled some of Heero's hair around a finger now. "Was it the usual nightmare? About the girl?"

"No." Heero moved his head so it was resting in the crook of Duo's neck now. "It was one of those conglomerate nightmares, where it took a bunch of things, threw them in a blender, and poured out the result into my subconscious."

"You don't tend to get those," Duo remarked.

"For a while, I wasn't getting nightmares that often at all. I thought...maybe I'd gotten over everything. Maybe I'd finally moved on." Heero chuckled softly. "Then Relena gave me a daughter, and I'm having nightmares again."

Duo continued stroking Heero's hair in between stealing sips of Heero's coffee.

"You should talk to Relena about them, you know."

"I know."

"You can trust her. She's on your side, 'Ro."

"I know she is. But she's got enough on her plate right now, adjusting to motherhood and what not. I don't want to make things harder for her."

"I think if you tell her that you're scared of what fatherhood has in store for you, it might make her feel better about her feelings towards motherhood. I know when Thalia told me she was expecting, after I got over the whole 'you're fucking with me' thing, I said to her, 'I'm scared shitless of being a dad, I'm gonna fuck this kid up.' And she told me, 'I'm scared too, that I'm going to do the wrong thing and scar her for life.'"

Heero sighed.

"What are you afraid of?"

"We fought a war, Duo. We sacrificed so much of ourselves so that we could have peace. Despite everything we went through, everything is so fragile still."

"One idiot torches the thread and we gotta start all over again," Duo said. "You're afraid that when that time comes, it'll end up on our kids' plates instead of ours."

"What if I can't protect my daughter, Duo?" Heero raised his head a little.

"From what?"

Heero fidgeted with Duo's braid. "Assholes. The world at large. My parents... How do I put this? My stepfather was an asshole. Verbally abusive, sometimes physically. And my mother didn't make any attempts to shield me from his bullshit, she just stood there and did nothing. I ended up with a freelance assassin as a guardian and was taught things no kid should ever have to learn. No one tried to protect me. I had to do that all my own, when I shouldn't have had to."

"Don't think you'll ever have to worry about that, 'Ro. For one thing, you'd take a bullet for your wife and kid, and then jump the guy, yell about how bullets are worthless against you and that you have other limbs, and then yeet him out a window." Duo took a huge gulp of now lukewarm coffee. "Some kid ain't gonna come in and try to blow up something, watch it all go wrong, and take your family from you, because no one is making child soldiers anymore."

Duo rested his cheek against the top of Heero's head.

"All of the child soldiers are adults now anyway."

"They're all in Preventers," Heero said. "No one wants to go through that again. I fought for peace, Duo. I'm going to fight to keep it. I have to for Millie's sake."

"You got a good head on your shoulders, 'Ro. I don't think you gotta worry about being a terrible parent."

Heero scoffed. "You could argue I have plenty of experience in what not to do."

"Listen. The little lady's got the best possible guy for a dad. And if you need backup, you got me. The neighbours even approve of me!"

"The Yarznbovitchs only approve of you because they heard you grew up in the church."

"Uh huh!" Duo nodded enthusiastically. "Literally, in my case. Can't get holier 'n that, apparently. Seems I know my Scripture better than they do too, and I only half paid any attention."

"They don't know you're living in sin."

"Well so's their daughter, she's unmarried and has like two kids or something with two different men. Old fashioned if you ask me, but whatever, I ain't her parents." Duo shrugged. "Your marriage and my marriage are open ones. Ain't like we're screwing around behind our wives' backs."

Heero squeezed Duo's hand. "Thanks."

Duo blinked. "For?"

"Talking with me."

Duo kissed Heero.

"Any time, babe. Any time."


End file.
